04-29-2014, 04:23 PM
Hi All
Firstly, I have to give Miles all the credit and by-n-large this story, tru in the telling, is dedicated to him, as it was his darn moop-moop thing on word games that has now become a vocabulary fixture in my outdoorsing dictionary.
The Moop-Moop tent…. I Moop-moop in a hole an’ I shower under a pole…....... Has a nice ring to it…
Anyway, <having given Miles his credit> as you ALL Know, I went on my South solo migration over the last what 10 days.
Now usually I’m migratin Due South a long long long long long way, and after all that flappin ‘n flyin’, I always seem to just land up back home…
Why? I ‘avent the foggiest.
Anyhow this time I went’s to see all my relatives at the dam +- 300Km South West, ‘an what a re-union it was. The miscovey clan, the pelican clan, the stork clan and the mallard clan all quacking & hooting & sifting slimey mud for worms…
A great time was had by all
But that’s not my story, but first you’ll have to go and see my album pic the Moop-Moop tent.
Now picture this... Yours truly, moop-mooping away in peace, book in hand, in the moop-moop tent with the door un-zipped, when, at a distance of, <perhaps 5M> (about where the photo was taken from), 'an out of the corner of my eye I saw movement.... Ohhhhh crap!
I looked and saw a HUGE black shiny python curling all over itself in the grass....:eek:
Well, I literally almost moop-mooped again.
Then I looked properly, and then I really shat myself.....:eek:...:eek:
If only it were a python.
You see, a python is an ambush predator, and if you sit still long enough it will just move on by….
Oh no, not my luck.... What was really there was much, much more dangerous.
It was a BLEEDIN' MONITOR LIZARD ABOUT 2M IN LENGTH
From Wiki
Monitors are fearsome predators, hunting on and under the ground, in trees and (in the case of the Nile monitor) in the water. They differ from snakes in having movable eyelids and external ears, but they do have forked, snake-like tongues, which they use in conjunction with the Jacobson's organ, a fluid-filled bi-lobed sensory organ in the roof of the mouth.
The twin ends of the tongue collect odour particles from the air and then deliver them to the corresponding receptors of the Jacobson's organ, which can detect differences in strength on each tongue tip and from this gauge the direction of the scent, allowing the monitor to follow scent trails.
They will eat practically anything: insects, reptiles, frogs, small mammals up to the size of domestic cats, birds and eggs, carrion and rubbish.
Water monitors also catch fish and are among the most important predators of crocodile eggs. They have been observed using teamwork for this; one distracts the mother crocodile while others rush in to dig up the nest.
Their short powerful legs are armed with strong claws which they use both for digging and climbing; I have seen one emerging with a chick from a bee-eater's nest in a vertical bank which would be inaccessible to snakes.
Water monitors are excellent swimmers, folding their legs in and using their tails like crocodiles, and can stay underwater for well over half an hour. They can run astonishingly fast over a short distance, and invariably head for water when disturbed.
End Wiki
And they are very very aggressive indeed.
Their tails make fierce defense weapons, and can break legs with them. They will attack at the slightest provocation… Their bite is also to be feared..
Well, as you can imagine, I Moop-mooped at a rate of knots <fortunately I was in the right place, an being starkers an all>, I says to myself, "Duckkie the only way out is to put your paddles in your moop-moop and get out backwards underneath the bottom of the moop-moop tent"… EWWWW
Well, all's well that ends well, THANKFULLY the bugger marched on by swinging his head left to right and right to left, his forked tongue flickering in an out…. He passed me by….
Perhaps it was the pong of my moop-moop…:biggrin:
Firstly, I have to give Miles all the credit and by-n-large this story, tru in the telling, is dedicated to him, as it was his darn moop-moop thing on word games that has now become a vocabulary fixture in my outdoorsing dictionary.
The Moop-Moop tent…. I Moop-moop in a hole an’ I shower under a pole…....... Has a nice ring to it…
Anyway, <having given Miles his credit> as you ALL Know, I went on my South solo migration over the last what 10 days.
Now usually I’m migratin Due South a long long long long long way, and after all that flappin ‘n flyin’, I always seem to just land up back home…
Why? I ‘avent the foggiest.
Anyhow this time I went’s to see all my relatives at the dam +- 300Km South West, ‘an what a re-union it was. The miscovey clan, the pelican clan, the stork clan and the mallard clan all quacking & hooting & sifting slimey mud for worms…
A great time was had by all
But that’s not my story, but first you’ll have to go and see my album pic the Moop-Moop tent.
Now picture this... Yours truly, moop-mooping away in peace, book in hand, in the moop-moop tent with the door un-zipped, when, at a distance of, <perhaps 5M> (about where the photo was taken from), 'an out of the corner of my eye I saw movement.... Ohhhhh crap!
I looked and saw a HUGE black shiny python curling all over itself in the grass....:eek:
Well, I literally almost moop-mooped again.
Then I looked properly, and then I really shat myself.....:eek:...:eek:
If only it were a python.
You see, a python is an ambush predator, and if you sit still long enough it will just move on by….
Oh no, not my luck.... What was really there was much, much more dangerous.
It was a BLEEDIN' MONITOR LIZARD ABOUT 2M IN LENGTH
From Wiki
Monitors are fearsome predators, hunting on and under the ground, in trees and (in the case of the Nile monitor) in the water. They differ from snakes in having movable eyelids and external ears, but they do have forked, snake-like tongues, which they use in conjunction with the Jacobson's organ, a fluid-filled bi-lobed sensory organ in the roof of the mouth.
The twin ends of the tongue collect odour particles from the air and then deliver them to the corresponding receptors of the Jacobson's organ, which can detect differences in strength on each tongue tip and from this gauge the direction of the scent, allowing the monitor to follow scent trails.
They will eat practically anything: insects, reptiles, frogs, small mammals up to the size of domestic cats, birds and eggs, carrion and rubbish.
Water monitors also catch fish and are among the most important predators of crocodile eggs. They have been observed using teamwork for this; one distracts the mother crocodile while others rush in to dig up the nest.
Their short powerful legs are armed with strong claws which they use both for digging and climbing; I have seen one emerging with a chick from a bee-eater's nest in a vertical bank which would be inaccessible to snakes.
Water monitors are excellent swimmers, folding their legs in and using their tails like crocodiles, and can stay underwater for well over half an hour. They can run astonishingly fast over a short distance, and invariably head for water when disturbed.
End Wiki
And they are very very aggressive indeed.
Their tails make fierce defense weapons, and can break legs with them. They will attack at the slightest provocation… Their bite is also to be feared..
Well, as you can imagine, I Moop-mooped at a rate of knots <fortunately I was in the right place, an being starkers an all>, I says to myself, "Duckkie the only way out is to put your paddles in your moop-moop and get out backwards underneath the bottom of the moop-moop tent"… EWWWW
Well, all's well that ends well, THANKFULLY the bugger marched on by swinging his head left to right and right to left, his forked tongue flickering in an out…. He passed me by….
Perhaps it was the pong of my moop-moop…:biggrin: